I recently talked with Christopher Reverie, CGCS, about his decision to run for the GCSAA board of directors and why he wants to give back to the industry he loves through service to the association. Here’s our conversation:
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I shouldn’t have been surprised to bump into Vanja Drasler at the GCSAA Conference & Show. The hurdles facing international attendees trying to get to San Diego were high. Yet there she was, smiling and asking great questions as always.
I realized I didn’t know enough about this enigmatic woman I’d bumped into often at major championships and GCSAA shows over the years. I decided to solve that problem by interviewing her. Here’s what I learned.
Drasler is Slovenian by birth but really a citizen of the turf world. Like many in our business, she did the expected thing after school and got an office job. She hated it. “I found out quickly that was not for me…staying inside all day.”
So she threw herself at the outdoors and explored landscaping and horticulture. “A friend of a friend worked on a golf course and I was intrigued,” she says. Within a few years, she rose from assistant at a course in Slovenia to superintendent as facilities in the Czech Republic and Austria.
She’s a lifelong learner, with a university degree in ag/hort as well as doing the UMass short course, the Great Lakes and Greenkeeper U online degrees, and the The Ohio State Program. Her life really changed when she met both Stan Zontek and Mel Lucas through the Slovenian Greenkeepers Association. She quickly found that friendships like those can take you places.
Honestly, she might have one of the best resumes I’ve ever seen. In addition to nearly 15 years of experience at some excellent European clubs, she had internships at both Harbour Town and Baltusrol and has probably volunteered or worked at as many championships as anyone I’ve met. Check this out:
Ryder Cup at Whistling Straits, WI (2021)
The PGA Championship at Bethpage State Parks-Black Course, NY (2019)
The Players Championship at TPC Sawgrass, FL (2019)
Dell Technologies at TPC Boston, MA (2018)
Alfred Dunhill Links Championship at St. Andrews Old Course, UK (2017)
Waste Management Phoenix Open at TPC Scottsdale, AZ (2017)
The PGA Championship at Baltusrol Golf Club, Springfield, NJ (2016)
Ladies European Tour Pilsen Golf Masters, Pilsen, The Czech Republic (2014)
RBC Heritage PGA Tour at Harbour Town Golf Links, Hilton Head, SC (2014)
The Barclays PGA Tour at Liberty National, Jersey City, NJ (2013)
U.S. Open at The Olympic Club, San Francisco, CA (2012)
Pebble Beach AT&T Tournament, Pebble Beach, CA (2012)
British Open at St. George, England (2011)
The Barclays Scottish Open at Loch Lomond Golf Club, UK (2010)
“I try to do one tournament a year and I’ve done 14 so far.” Seriously, she’s been up-close-and-personal at a lot of clubs and met a boatload of great people. She does it because she’s passionate about learning and trying to be her best.
“It’s really important to me to connect with others in my industry. I worked with top superintendents in the U.S. and around the world and got to experience a wide variety of agronomic practices in different regions. It’s made me a much better superintendent.”
She does it mostly on her own dime. “People ask why I spend my own money to do this and it’s because it’s invaluable to see the best courses in the world be prepared. I learn something new every time. I’ve collected ideas and little tricks from each place.”
It hasn’t been unusual throughout her career for her to be the only female at a meeting or event. “From the beginning, I knew as a female in an industry with less than 1 percent women you have to prove yourself more. You have to work twice as hard.”
Drasler has lots of goals, possibly including the 2-year program at Rutgers, but she would clearly love the opportunity to be superintendent at a club in the U.S. “I love what I do now, but that’s my dream.”
She’s clearly passionate about what she does. “As soon as I started working on courses, I got swept up in the smell of the fresh cut grass and the deer running across the fairways. I loved sunrises and sunsets on the course. I never look at the time when I’m on the course. I lose myself because I love it so much.”
Drasler says with sincerity, “I get paid to do what I love. Not many people get that. It’s amazing.”
By Pat Jones
Twitter is wonderful hub for ideas but it’s a lousy place for context…particularly when the topic is something as complex as the industry’s big show. So rather than go back and forth in Tweets, I thought I’d try to put some perspective on what just happened. Here are 25 thoughts about GCSAA in San Diego and what it means to the event’s future.
1. First and foremost, it was an awesome experience. I mean it. Even at half its recent size, the face-to-face interaction combined with terrific content (education, gatherings like Ladies Leading Turf, awards, etc.) was irreplaceably valuable. It was the feel-good hit of the winter.
2. The GCSAA staff did an astonishing job of pulling this whole thing off. It easily could have not happened. I’ve been to 33 of these: this was by far the smallest event I’ve witnessed but also the most memorable in a lot of ways. And yes, I took 400 selfies to prove it.
3. Though small in size, the event was a big win when the association needed it most. Had they been forced into a second year of virtual show, the impact on their revenues would have been very nasty and probably long-lasting. How much of the “normal” $8-9 million in annual C&S revenue did they take in for 2022? I’m guessing maybe two-thirds despite a shortfall of 100+ exhibitors and historically low registration and fees revenue. Their finances are badly rattled, but not gutted.
4. Reality Check: there were only about 1,500 superintendents there out of 6,500 total attendees (buyers and sellers).
5. San Diego was warm and pretty and welcoming. Some people love this location (particularly left-coasters and those who can get direct flights there) and it is convenient for walking and partying. But it is more expensive for attendees and a LOT more expensive for exhibitors and GCSAA. California convention center costs are some of the nation’s highest.
6. Those event costs are critical because GCSAA is trying to maximize revenues and minimize expenses so they can use what’s left over to do all the stuff that costs more money than it makes: education, advocacy, career development, admin, etc. That’s why GCSAA loved San Antonio while most of us didn’t: the event was far more profitable there and even with smaller numbers, their bottom line was bigger.
7. As early as last November I told anyone who would listen that, if the show happened at all, attendance would be half of the normal west coast count of 12,000. I hate it when I’m right all the time. It was a perfect storm of reasons not to attend. The risks and the hassles outweighed the benefits for lots of reasonable folks. I can’t blame any individual or company for taking a pass. It felt like a crapshoot up until a few weeks before the event.
8. Being me, I knew I’d go to San Diego come hell or high water. Side note: I didn’t schedule much stuff this week after the show because I had to assume I’d come home with Covid or some other trade show malady. Happily, my booster apparently worked and no ‘rona for me! I haven’t heard any “super-spreader” horror stories about other attendees…yet.
9. The vaccine passport thingy worked fine and I did my best to wear my mask consistently on the show floor (but often failed). Once folks were inside, all bets were off. The mask mandate wasn’t very mandatory once you were on the show floor or in a classroom. The idea that everyone had been tested or vaxxed was some solace, but the whole thing felt more like theater than public health.
10. For two years, I’ve been preaching my theory that Covid accelerated a bunch of industry trends that were already happening. People were already starting to return to golf as exercise and a respite from the world in 2019. The pandemic turbocharged that. Conversely, we’d had more than a decade of eroding attendance at GIS/GCSAA before the 2021 event was cancelled and 2022 got Covidized.
11. So while we all wonder how much of the pandemic bubble we can retain to grow the golf business, we also have to consider what all this means to the cash cow…the GCSAA expo that funds all the fun.
12. Note that I said “expo” and not “event.” That’s an important distinction. The event – the conference education and related stuff – is healthy and terrific. People love the networking and the camaraderie and that will never change. It’s invaluable to attend if you want to be engaged in the golf community at a high level. If you do it right, the annual conference can be a hugely important part of your career and your life. It’s the epicenter of the turf business and social community.
13. That said, the actual trade show – the expo – is facing some big challenges. First, there’s the general downturn in expos since this thing called the Internet showed up. I’m not talking about virtual shows – those suck. I’m talking about the other zillion ways for sellers to reach buyers in the age of Amazon, Meta and YouTube. Recent pre-pandemic attendance (13,000-ish) was only about half of the all-time highs in Orlando during the batshit crazy golf boom times 20 years ago.
14. For the newer firms that exhibit, the show can be an amazing door-opener and a way to learn the market. But for most mature companies and salespeople, the GCSAA expo is yet another chance to be face-to-face with customers they already know. The same as regional shows, chapter meetings, sponsored events, sales calls, tournaments, etc., etc., etc. Face time is great and it is fun as hell but it doesn’t contribute measurably to Turf Company X’s sales figures.
15. And it’s expensive to be on that show floor. Huge companies spend hugely – one north of $1 million a show by all accounts – and lots of leading companies are in the $100,000-$250,000 range when you include booth space, booth costs, promo, travel, hotels, entertainment, giveaways, etc. When I ran GCI, our simple little booth plus travel and expenses for 6-8 people was easily $20K.
16. Exhibitors will tell you the booth space and the sponsorships they buy from GCSAA are the smallest part of that expense. When Turf Company X spends $75,000 for the show, a fraction of that – maybe $15,000 – actually goes to the GCSAA. Then the GCSAA has to pay for all the show costs. When all is said and done, the net profit (“excess revenue”) generated by that $75K spend by Turf Company X might only be a few thousand dollars in the cash register at GCSAA HQ.
17. And remember that the ultimate success of the cash cow expo depends largely on CUSTOMERS SHOWING UP and engaging with exhibitors. When smaller registration numbers combine with supers who head home or off to the beach instead of to the show floor, the optics are terrible. As much as this show should be seen as a qualitative vs. quantitative success, you can’t disregard the sparse traffic on Wednesday afternoon and empty aisles on Thursday morning. Some veteran exhibitors were not happy.
18. No one on the industry side questions the value GCSAA brings to the business or the importance of financially supporting the association’s mission. Most are happy to give when they see a need. But it’s getting harder for exhibitors to justify the annual expense when the trade show returns – both for them and for the association – are diminishing.
19. So what do they do?
20. Option 1 is to stay the course and just keep doing what they’re doing now: holding on for dear life, cutting expenses and hoping the deterioration of this business model slows or reverses itself. Orlando will obviously be better next year, but I just don’t see it ratcheting right back up to pre-pandemic levels. Particularly with Phoenix and San Diego, two western sites, coming right after. In short, they will cross their fingers and hope that this was a temporary problem and plow ahead.
21. Option 2 is to stop rotating and just keep the show in Orlando (the best-attended location with a decent cost structure). Schedule it to follow the PGA show every year and call it a day. This is the option that makes the most traditional business sense and eliminates a lot of the uncertainties and financial ups and downs of moving the expo from place to place. This option has been discussed and even negotiated over the years, but leadership always rejects it because members say they want variety in locations. The question is can you afford to cater to that desire?
22. Option 3 is to go to an every-other-year format for the expo. There are lots of biannual shows out there, particularly in mature markets with high exhibition costs. This is a much more sustainable approach from the industry standpoint but the association would have to blow up their cash flow model and figure out new ways to tap companies for support to maintain services at their current levels. Many companies say they’d contribute an amount equivalent to what GCSAA would earn from their participation on years there’s no show – that $15K that actually gets paid to the association. In theory, GCSAA stays largely whole financially but exhibitors save a lot.
23. Option 3 doesn’t mean no event at all in non-expo years. They could have the conference (education, business and networking) rotating to a variety of locations in alternate years. That opens the door to cities like Nashville, Savannah, New Orleans or Austin without having to worry as much about convention centers and such. I love this idea but, again, the disruption to GCSAA’s finances would be significant. That said it might be the better long-term solution to keep industry support and meet member desires at the same time.
24. So here we are, blessed beyond belief that golf is healthier than it’s been in years. We’re overcoming huge supply chain challenges and historic demands for labor to feed the growth of our industry. The GCSAA conference continues to improve in terms of content, scope, inclusiveness and creativity. Yet no one is quite sure what’s going to happen with the biggest trade show in our happy little business because the economics stink.
25. In the end, I know one thing: the industry can survive without the GCSAA expo but the GCSAA expo can’t survive without industry. I adore this event — it’s been a big part of my career — and I hope they figure out a solution, because we need an active, well-funded association leading the way more now than ever before.
Boom!
You know what makes my head explode? Hearing this from GMs, pros and supers…
“Our members don’t want a club newsletter. They won’t even open emails. None of them are on Twitter or Instagram. And there’s no point even trying because they don’t pay attention anyway. They won’t even rake bunkers or fix ballmarks! It’s useless so why bother?”
First, this is another example of this distasteful habit we in the golf business have of shaming our own customers. A Top 25 super confessed to me recently how frustrated he is by all the negative crap he hears about players from some his colleagues. And he’s right. Yes, golfers can be dumbasses…but shouldn’t we acknowledge that their dumbassery is at least partially our fault for not being better teachers?
And second, this “why bother?” mindset makes me crazy because it ignores one simple truth: Communication, done properly, works. People learn new behaviors.
So, at the risk of giving up all my top-secret consulting advice for free, allow me to answer a few basic questions to help you and your facility communicate more effectively with those annoying people who pay the bills.
(Note: this is a club-centric piece. If you’re at a daily fee that doesn’t collect email addresses and follow up with coupons or invitations or reminders, god help you.)
What should we communicate about?
What are you selling? Pick a few key topics for the year and stick with them. Examples could include tree removal, capital needs, wildlife around the course, “meet the team,” etc. The point is to look at your business plan for the year and figure out what needs to be promoted or highlighted to members on a regular basis.
No surprises! ALWAYS communicate repeatedly about upcoming disruptions or closures.
ROI stories. “Remember that cool thing we spent a pile of money on two years ago? Here’s how it’s paying for itself.”
People, people, people. Tell stories about the team. Explain why your mechanic is the most important “invisible” employee on the grounds. Introduce staff with a short Q&A about family, favorite teams, foods, etc.
What exactly are we creating?
Start with a content bucket. The most important thing to do is collect all your content in one place on your website. Typically this is your blog or news section. Nearly every existing facility website has a “News” function on the nav bar but you can always add a widget like WordPress for free. Everything should be posted here: announcements about aerification, pictures of trees getting cut down, junior golf updates, videos of cute little foxes frolicking around the course, your latest drone footage, new items in the restaurant, etc., big Nike sale in the pro shop, etc., etc., etc. Put everything you want your customers/members to know in ONE place.
Platforms like email, Twitter and Facebook are just PIPELINES. They each have different quirks but fundamentally they’re just tubes through which the info from your content bucket flows to folks you need to reach. The content is what informs, not the conveyance.
What happens to my existing superintendent blog? Nothing. Keep doing it but whatever you post on your turf blog should also be posted on any main club blog or news site and shared according to the club’s schedule. The point is to put everything in one place, make it easy to find and search and then share your content on every possible facility platform.
Who does this content stuff?
Leaders lead. At a club, the GM should run this effort. You and your fellow managers should all contribute or find someone on the team who will. Department heads should drive content about their priorities.
Plagiarism rocks. My best advice is to write/create a few original things and STEAL the rest from good sources. The GCSAA, CMAA and PGA of America all have lovely content machines, fact sheets, and more. GCI, GCM, TurfNet and other places have decades of searchable content you can use. Best of all, the USGA has an outstanding video series called “Fore the Golfer” that uses the credibility of the Blue Blazer crew to tell important stories about golf and golf courses.
Get some help. If you don’t have a marketing director or coordinator or similar person at your facility to help with this, hire a freelancer for a couple of hundred bucks a month to help create, edit and proofread your content. (Check out Upwork.com.)
How do you put that content in front of customers?
Mail Chimp is so easy an old guy like me can do it.
Monthly club newsletter. I remain shocked that more facilities don’t do simple newsletters for their members. This is particularly surprising for private clubs which ought to be focused on member retention every stinking day. A good newsletter from a trusted source like your club can have a 50%+ open-up-and-scan rate if you do a few things right (see Tips for Success below). If you don’t have a emailer program like Constant Contact or Mail Chimp, get one.
Content calendars. Most importantly, doing a monthly e-news forces your management team to plan out content in advance. Planning the newsletter makes you focus on upcoming priorities, events, programs, etc. It’s an inherently proactive practice I recommend highly for reasons that go well beyond just “getting the word out.”
Social platforms. Once you’ve created the content for your e-news, your social plan is largely done too because you’ll simply be sharing that same content from your content bucket on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. Best case is to spread those key pieces of content out over the course of the month so you have a built-in, ongoing flow of interesting stuff going to your members no matter what their preferred platform is.
Sound easy? That’s because it is. When you have a good content plan driven by your facility e-newsletter, your social media plan is largely written. You’ve shared your key informational content so everything else on your feeds is about branding, echoing those messages and projecting the “voice” you want in your market.
Tips for Success
Skitch is a free program that lets you easily illustrate your images.
Pictures, pictures and more pictures. Want to instantly make your newsletter a success? Publish a link to all of the latest pictures from the last big club event. Attaching nearly any image will create at least 3x more engagement with social posts. Always include thumbnail pics in your enewsletter body to set stories apart. Creating a “pictorial story” with step-by-step images and a sentence or two about each picture is an incredibly simple and effective way to communicate. People read photo captions much more often than the rest of a story so don’t neglect them. Also check out Skitch, an app that allows you to add simple arrows and notes to make pics more educational.
Short is good. If you’re struggling trying to write a science-based, 2,000-word essay on why golfers should embrace aerification, STOP. Think about five quick reasons why aerification matters and boil it down to one sentence supporting each point. Stick a before-and-after pic or a rootzone pic in there and you’re done.
Video clips are awesome. Two-thirds of folks will watch them “frequently.” Try 90-second show-and-tell videos out on the course or around the clubhouse to share new things or highlight a new member service.
Podcasts are not as awesome. Yes, they’re da bomb and such if you’re a turf nerd, that but remember that less than 20% of normal people listen to podcasts monthly or more. I get it: it’s fun to hear the sound of your own voice but when 80% of your potential audience won’t ever listen, you should consider short videos or pictorials instead.
Customize everything a little for each social platform. Posting that awesome new drone footage? Tailor your intro differently for each platform (newsletter, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook.) Pick one platform to lead with (Instagram makes sense) and create your post to perform well there. Do a quick modification for each additional channel to make the message fit the media. You can use Hootsuite or Buffer to manage your channels but I think its just as easy to cut, paste and update as needed for each platform.
Be specific and active in your subject lines. Remember the preview that shows up as well.
Subject lines are critical! You should spend as much time crafting the subject line for your e-newsletter as you do on any other part of it. Shame on you if you send one out that says “Shady Acres GC Newsletter for June.” Instead say: “NEW: Doak’s master plan updates and a killer guacamole recipe from Chef Bob.” Be specific, be engaging and sell the idea of clicking on the damn thing.
Keep it brief. For a monthly newsletter, 5-6 items are more than enough. Yes you can do them every other month instead but it’s easier to keep on top of it with a short, monthly format.
Send it twice. Send your eblast out on a regular date each month but also schedule a resend to those who didn’t open it. If you get 35% open-up on your first blast, the second one will likely net you another 10-15% with zero effort.
Make it fun. It ain’t rocket science.
So, enough excuses and enough customer-bashing. Use a newsletter and social plan to force your facility to think about what and how you communicate with the folks who pay the bills. Make it a priority for a while and it will soon become institutionalized. And you’ll be better off for it.
If you’re a turfhead, I’d be surprised if you haven’t heard of Tyler Bloom by now.
He is, like me, noisy on social media including Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn. He’s been an award-winning writer and turf social influencer for years but he was also a leading industry voice for finding innovative ways to solve the labor problems that continue to plague most facilities. Yet he was also still searching for his own opportunity at an elite club. But the big job he wanted eluded him.
WATCH NOW: The Evolution of Tyler Bloom
Last spring as COVID roared, Tyler and I partnered up to co-host several terrific pandemic education webinars. He confided in me then that he had come to a fork in the road, so to speak, and was about to take the direction less traveled by starting a business to help golf courses with labor solutions. But since Tyler is Tyler, he had a million other things he was trying to do as well including a training program for assistants, recruiting for open superintendent positions and other types of consulting.
So, for the past year, I’ve been watching him evolve, talking with him and trying to nudge him in the direction of trying to focus on the HUGE opportunity he has helping clubs build better talent programs. His concept isn’t radical: he mainly helps clubs connect with existing resources in their states that not only provide candidates but also funding for apprenticeship positions in many cases. It’s simple legwork but it seems revolutionary to facilities where the most innovative recruitment strategy they’d tried was posting jobs on Indeed.
So, here we are in the spring of 2021 and I wanted to find out where Tyler is on his evolutionary journey so I recorded a Q&A with him and pushed him to tell it like it is. It turns out he still has a million ideas, but the demand for his apprenticeship programs and real-world education for aspiring assistants has caught fire and there’s no doubt this road less traveled in the right road for him.
If you’re a super or GM who’s frustrated trying to find good help or an up-and-coming assistant who wants tips and ideas to take them to the top, take a half and hour and watch this. It could be a game-changer for you.
WATCH NOW: The Evolution of Tyler Bloom
Jonesing for a Fix
Periodically I have to quit something to remind myself that I am still a world-class addict.
The good news is the thing I’m quitting this time is Lexapro, an anti-anxiety medication I’ve taken for about six years. I started the prescription at a super-stressful time in my life personally and professionally. My doctor said it was a small dosage – 10 mg – and the impact was so mild it wasn’t really even definable.
Okay I know you’re probably sitting there thinking, “How much anxiety could you possibly have, Selfie Boy?” Well not a heckuva lot compared to people going through terrible things like illness or injury or having your life hammered by a pandemic. Not a damned bit like that, thankfully.
But we all have our triggers, don’t we? Those stupid, unfounded fears that set off that death-spiral feeling that all is lost. The “imposter syndrome” that makes you feel like a fraud in your own life. The constant “what if?” scenarios in your head that always end with being fired for something completely crazy (which, hilariously, actually did happen to me).
We worry endlessly about our children – even when they’re grown – and fret about money and self-image and jeez we’re terrified of dying alone and pretty soon we’re spiraling down once again into the blackness.
Depression lurks in the wings for too many of us, waiting for the opportunity to turn a bad thing really awful. There’s no doubt that a couple of decades ago, depression turned Funny Drunk Pat telling stories at the bar into Pathetic Drunk Pat gagging on a mouthful of warm Kamchatka vodka first thing in the morning. I eventually figured out that fighting depression with booze was equivalent to fighting lung cancer with cigarettes. So I quit 11 years ago.
But just six years ago, even Happily Sober Pat was struggling with the stress of running a large publishing enterprise and, ironically, dealing with a loved one who was in the grips of his own serious drug addiction.
So I went to my doc and got some help in the form of that tiny little happy pill. But I did not rely on dope alone. I also went to my boss and suggested somebody else take over a chunk of my big fancy publishing job because the stress just wasn’t worth it. And I discovered a thing called Families Anonymous and with my wife’s help we learned to cope with addiction in our family. (FA is a godsend for parents and others dealing with addicted loved ones.) Last but not least I got serious about daily powerwalks which helped me a ton both physically and emotionally.
And the magic words that helped me quit drinking also guided me in so many other ways during stressful times:
“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”
So, in these intervening years, I’ve been able to eliminate a whole bunch of the stressors that led me to Lexapro in the first place. It occurred to me recently that am quite literally running out of things to obsess about.
So I talked to my doc and she agreed I didn’t seem to need the happy pills anymore. She told me to wean myself off of them by cutting them in half for a couple of weeks, then taking half every other day for another two weeks. Easy peazy, right?
Well sort of.
As I said, the good news is I’m giving up something I don’t need anymore because I’ve mitigated a lot of the anxiety that made me need it.
But the bad news is I’m still an addict so I’m currently going through a full-blown case of white-knuckle Lexapro withdrawal.
Right now – right this second – weaning myself off a “mild” dose is kicking my ass. I can’t concentrate, I’m weak, and my tinnitus (which is always annoying) is on blast. Honestly, the physical symptoms of this withdrawal are way worse than when I quit drinking. This time I’m actually Jonesing for a fix.
The addict inside me keeps urgently reminding me it would just be waaaay easier just to keep popping that teeny tiny little pill and not have to feel like this.
But that would be wrong. So I write this to focus my foggy brain and I walk and I try to remember the single greatest lesson of old age:
This too shall pass.
A week or so ago I opened SiteOne’s very cool virtual golf forum with a talk that makes it clear why I’m bullish on the future of both golf and golf course superintendents. Here’s what I had to say.
First, let me restate for the record that I despise the word “boom” when it’s attached to the word “golf.” Those of us who lived through the OG golf boom back in the day now regret much of what happened (e.g., overbuilding, becoming a subset of real-estate, and ego courses that demanded a silly amount of labor). We boomed, we busted and we’ve been slowing deflating and trying to find a new way to grow for two decades.
So, I won’t say boom but I do believe this pandemic bubble is real. The lack of alternatives and a yearning to get outside without getting infected re-ignited interest in golf. Rounds are up EVERYWHERE. The biggest reason for this has been the new work-from-home culture that suddenly makes it easier for people to plan their schedules around a quick round.
So – and it shocks me to write this sentence – cash flow at America’s pro shops is probably at an all-time high because of a global pandemic. Go figure.
The dead skunk in the room spoiling the “COVID saves golf” fairy tale is big old empty clubhouses. Facilities that rely on weddings and other non-golf events to pay the bills and cover debt will struggle with how to operate without some of those revenues for the foreseeable future.
That said, the pandemic has been a redonkulous short-term jolt for golf. Every operator I talk with just frickin giddy. The fundamental question is: can we make it last?
Here’s why I’m bullish that we can:
1. Work from home is here to stay. Companies quickly figured out that remote workers with flexible schedules do just fine. That’s lousy for the commercial real estate business but really good for golf.
2. Social distancing is becoming embedded in our culture the same way handshaking is going away. Media coverage helped establish our happy little pastime as the distancing champ. Score another point for golf!
3. Golf as exercise is finally getting the attention it deserves. The Great Pull Cart Shortage of 2020 is the best story ever because it’s evidence that people – including a growing number of women – want to get their 10,000 steps in outdoors and have fun at the same time.
4. America’s moms were already steering children away from contact team sports like soccer and football because of concerns about concussions. Those kids hit the course this year in huge numbers. I’m optimistic that youth golf can become a thing and create a bigger “next generation” of customers.
So, all of this points to a healthy future for golf…if we don’t screw it up. Just how would golf most likely shoot itself in the foot and waste this opportunity?
First by not really welcoming kids on the course. Way too many places give lip service to being kid-friendly but aren’t real crazy about having actual kids on the course. Why? Cuz of the usual gang of noisy geezers who bitch about how kids (and women) slow them down. Here’s how you avoid that: listen politely to the geezers then ignore them and go do the right thing for the future of your business.
And second we could fail to convert this bubble into something sustainable because too many facilities still suck at hospitality. Breaking News: People want to feel welcomed and appreciated!
I’ve always been baffled by the fact that the service at the average Starbucks is better than what a first-time visitor experiences at most golf facilities. Hell, I’m a 50-something white guy wearing a Seminole shirt and I still get ignored in pro shops. Facilities that embrace good customer service will outperform those who don’t in the post-COVID marketplace.
So that’s why I’m pretty bullish on golf. Now let’s talk about why I’m very bullish about the future for superintendents.
You provide leadership and ACTION.
Y’all once again proved you are indispensable during the pandemic. Had it not been for superintendents – often working with just a handful of staff – golf would have simply shut down. Instead, you worked your asses off and provided a place to play and decompress when we needed it most.
The smart people in golf from Mike Davis of USGA to Ben Crenshaw to big-time management company CEOs all agree: superintendents are the critical lynchpin in our business. Or, as Tom Watson told me 30 years ago, “Without a golf course superintendent, you have a cow pasture.”
This message…this understanding…has been slowly dawning on the golf community for decades but it’s becoming indisputable. The person who leads golf course maintenance runs the biggest, most valuable, most visible and most important aspect of a club. And you do it reliably, pretty much spot on budget, year after year. And you do it no matter what kind of chaos – storms, floods, wildfires, pandemics, plagues of locusts – get thrown at you.
That’s irreplaceable and the people who lead America’s golf facilities are finally waking up to it.
Carl Spackler No More
I know it may not always feel like it, but the image of the superintendent is light years better than it used to be. I thought it was fascinating to see the response superintendents had to the videos and coverage done by Barstool Sports during the U.S. Open. Riggs and his ForePlay team did a kind of “day in the life” thing with Steve Rabideau of Winged Foot and it just lit up Twitter and Instagram.
The videos were fun because Rabi is awesome puffing away on his cigar and viewers – particularly golf aficionados – dug the behind the scenes stuff. For once, it wasn’t just turfheads responding to a superintendent story at a major.
Think about that for a minute. There have been lots of these kind of “peek behind the curtain” stories in the past done by Matt Ginella or Geoff Shackelford or even schmucks like me. Most of it was great content and we cheered it but it didn’t engage avid golfers like this Riggs thing. It tells me that more and more golfers really are starting to get it, particularly the younger “buddy-trip-to-Bandon” dudes who know enough about Doak and Hanse and Fast and Firm to be dangerous.
The bottom line is that media wins like these, along with four decades of steady public relations by GCSAA, have paid off. But most importantly you told your own stories! The combined communications efforts of thousands of supers on social media have turned the tide. The general public still has little clue about what you do but the majority of regular golfers totally get it and maybe, kind of, sort of appreciate you.
Engaged Advocacy
Superintendents have made themselves essential to golf’s relationship with government. No other group has done as much to build relationships and tell golf’s business and environmental story. Hundreds and hundreds of individual supers are leaders in advocacy. Our profile and image on Capitol Hill and in every state is better and more positive because you guys engaged. You were smart enough to understand that it was not only important to defend what we do, it was personally and professionally rewarding. I have no doubt that, if not for the efforts made by supers over the years, the pandemic shutdown would have been vastly worse.
BTW, I genuinely believe that the First Green program is one of the best things superintendents can do. It’s a cool way to introduce kids to a golf course (and perhaps plant seeds for a future player or even a superintendent) and by all accounts rewarding as hell to host.
Business Excellence
When it comes to caring for golf courses, frugality is the mother of all virtues.
Golf is only sustainable if it’s financially sustainable and turfheads consistently over-deliver on whatever the budget happens to be. And, because there seems to be a gene for frugality amongst most turfheads, you’re fabulous at keeping on budget. And, because the pandemic didn’t change our labor issues one bit, that’s going to be even more important in future. In short, you aren’t just essential to course care, you’re essential to business success in general.
Passion
I’ve said it a gajillion times: you’re probably not going to get rich or famous doing this, but if you’re passionate about it you’ll never work a day.
How can you not be bullish about that?
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And a quick update…
I’m happy to report that Flagstick LLC – my happy little business – is doing well.
As you may have noticed, most of my work is with Aquatrols and BASF. I’ve loved both these companies unabashedly for years. Wonderful cultures, committed people and a clearheaded approach to the business. I’m grateful that their vision includes me.
I do projects with a few other folks – notably Brian Laurent and his nifty Ohio Superintendents Network – and I continue to teach and speak (virtually and small groups). I’m also proud to help out as needed for the Golf Course Builders Association of America (which is actually the hippest of all the allied associations).
Mostly I do what I’ve always done: tell stories, document the state of the industry, and try to advocate for golf course superintendents. I just don’t have a fancy title or a boss anymore. The latter suits me.
I know it sounds scandalous but me and Mrs. Jones have a thing going on at Flagstick. In addition to being talented, hilarious and hot, she’s run her own small business for years so she has Flagstick buttoned down and doing things right. We are cautiously optimistic it is a sustainable enterprise.
I confess that we have thrived during the pandemic. Both of us like the way it reshaped the way we work and we get to spend more time together. And we are best friends so we got that going for us.
I’m shocked to admit I don’t miss jetting around the country for meetings and speeches. I’ve driven to a couple of business things but this is the first time I’ve gone six months without flying since Reagan was president.
I really do miss engaging with all of y’all in person. There are some things Zoom can’t replace. I choose to believe that will be “normal” again someday.
One final thing: thank you so much for completing my surveys or answering my crazy emails about stories. I literally couldn’t do this without you. Keep in touch!
I am very old so this is hardly my first downturn rodeo.
2001 was a bad double-whammy with the tech stock bubble bursting in the spring and then the 9/11 attacks. The very sucky 2009 recession was obviously a benchmark for many of us because it lingered for years and interrupted many careers.
But right now let’s talk about 1991 when the United Auto Workers declared a general strike and half of Detroit was unemployed for months.
Guess what happened to golf in the area? It boomed! At least in the sense that rounds grew handsomely for a while because people had time on their hands. Once the strike was settled, Detroit stopped being a golf paradise and went back to being…er…Detroit.
That’s essentially what we’re seeing now. Anecdotally we hear about full tee sheets around the country. We’re told there’s a shortage of pull carts. Starter sets are supposedly flying off the shelves at Target and such. We’ve seen glowing articles in the Washington Post and elsewhere about how people are flocking to courses because it’s a healthy outdoor pastime that meets social distancing criteria. The fact that governors mostly saw the logic of this and a lot of courses never closed and nearly all of them are now open for play is nothing short of a miracle.
I predict that it’s only a matter of time before one of the same reporters who wrote previously about how millennials are killing golf will now pen an insightful piece about how a pandemic rescued the game from certain death.
Both of those are fine notions and, of course, completely wrong.
Millennials actually seem to like golf but probably not enough to make up for the gradual decline in geezers. Meh.
And if you think coronavirus is going to revitalize the business of golf and we’ll all live happily ever after, I know lots of people who would be pleased to sell you a course – dirt cheap – right now.
So let’s get real for a minute and examine a few important things about our current situation:
1. The number of rounds played is a wholly unreliable indicator of the overall health of the golf business. People cheered in 2009 when rounds seemed stable even as the recession roared. What they ignored was that SPENDING at golf facilities was way down. Mike Hughes, the head of NGCOA at the time, called it the Walmart effect. During a downturn people who normally shopped at Nordstrom’s or Macy’s still wanted to shop but not spend as much money, so they went to Walmart. Right now the people getting helped most by the COVID bump are accessible munis and mom-and-pop shops that sell rounds of golf for a buck a hole. (And, BTW, weather is still the biggest factor impacting rounds played.)
2. More play right now isn’t the start of some megatrend, it’s a short-term impact. Don’t get me wrong…it’s great to get people back on golf courses. But as other recreational options open up and the real economic impact of the pandemic starts to hit middle-class wallets, the COVID bump will flatten. Cash flow will become an existential problem and a pile of current operators will fail. (Note that I did not say those failed courses would cease to exist. I’ve learned over 30 years that it’s almost impossible to kill even the worst golf course. There’s always some dumbass who thinks they can bring a zombie back to life.)
3. The high end is the high end. Yes some elite clubs will take a hit as the commercial real estate market goes down the crapper and some wealthy members become less wealthy. But many of the top 1000 clubs will shrewdly use this as another opportunity to invest and grow and consolidate business from weaker facilities in the area. These were the same clubs who used 2009 as a launchpad for a longer-term effort to remodel and position themselves for the future. This will continue to widen the gap between the haves and the have nots from a revenue and long-term survival perspective.
4. The facilities in the middle are in the most peril, particularly if top-down management isn’t great. They have way more overhead than golf-only facilities, thus their business model relies more heavily on non-golf revenue. Specifically dining, drinking, weddings, events, meetings, etc. Like it or not, social distancing is not going away anytime soon. F&B has been a money-loser forever but now big clubhouses and indoor amenities are potentially a giant albatross around the neck of many midscale facilities. They’ve also been slammed by cancellations and that revenue can never be recouped. Cost-cutting becomes the only option and that’s a one-way ticket to mediocrity. Suddenly the bare-bones, golf-centric approach of Sweetens Cove and others like it with low overhead looks pretty damned good.
5. Superintendents, as always, will do the best they can with what they have. Honestly, most facilities don’t deserve the super they have. Y’all were the hero problem-solvers on pandemic restrictions from day one. I love the fact that within a few weeks there were at least a dozen options out there for “COVID cups” ranging from fancy lifts from $500 a set to pink pool noodles from Dollar General. And many of you continued operations or geared back up from a closure with skeleton staffs. I actually worry a little about the law of unintended consequences in that regard. How many facilities will see what their super and a couple of other workers accomplished during quarantine and think, “Hell, why do we need 10 people?” Sometimes turfheads are their own worst enemies in that respect.
So, all that said, I am shockingly optimistic about the future of the game itself. I sincerely believe golf as a pastime is well-suited the new normal of distancing and a renewed interest in being outdoors. The lurking threat of coronavirus (or whichever bug comes next) is also another big reason – beyond concussions – that parents are going to be loath to let their kids play traditional team/contact sports. If we can reach mommies with the message that golf is safer for kids and they can enjoy it too, we win.
(Note: I am not being misogynistic here. It’s a simple fact that mommies run the world when it comes to kids, activities, school, spending, etc. Duh.)
But as excited as I am about more people trying the game, I am far less optimistic about the future of our business model because most facilities hate change. They are sitting around right now thinking “Gee whiz I hope things are back to normal soon.” News alert! Normal left town a couple of months ago and it ain’t coming back. The only way to survive or even thrive is to DO SOMETHING!
Change – or at least the consideration of change – is mandatory for facilities stuck in the middle of the COVID crossroads right now. Here are a few questions I think your facility should ponder:
How do you take advantage of this once-in-forever opportunity to attract kids and families into the game?
Would you truly make a commitment to really welcoming kids or would you still find ways to keep the rug rats off the golf course?
Are you ready to change your business model to reduce non-golf operational costs dramatically enough to make a golf-centric facility really viable?
Would you actively promote walking even if it means reducing cart revenue?
Are you ready to totally walk away from traditional on-course amenities like ball washers and water coolers that demand labor and may represent a viral point of contact? How about bunker rakes?
Would you invest in concepts like Longleaf Tees to make the traditional game less onerous for kids, newbies, occasional players and old farts like me who can barely hit it 200 yards?
Would your facility have the balls to ignore the noisy demands of the usual gang of low-handicappers and focus on the bigger opportunity of fitness, friends, family and fun?
Golf is at a crossroads. Facilities can choose the path of change or they can keep wishing for Tiger to start winning again and for the old normal to come back soon. If your course decides just to hunker down and hope for the best, that’s cool by me. But you do so at your peril. Just remember what Stephen King once wrote: “Wish in one hand and shit in the other and see which hand fills up first.”
Listen Now: Candid Conversations Podcast #3
Our third Candid Conversations podcast focuses on you, the superintendent, and how this will impact careers, staff development and team-building. We were fortunate to have Armen Suny join Tyler Bloom and me for the discussion. If you want to learn more about Armen and his remarkable background, read this: https://www.golfcourseindustry.com/article/armen-suny-superintendent-recruiting/. The short version is he's one of the top recruiters and career consultants in the golf industry.
A few key points:
Armen: This is the opportunity to develop those leadership skills the best supers have. This is what we can do. This is how we can help the cause.
Come up with an aggressive plan to control costs. Find the bare bones but also have a plan to come back when this is over. What's that next step when we're ready to open back up?
How do you counsel supers to assess their facility's financial health? "The unfortunate things is there are no options right now. Stay in place and do everything you can to make that facility successful, even if it seems like a lost cause. Stay in place and stay position-sheltered."
Tyler: This is a great time to be educating your staff. Reaching out to them even if they've been furloughed and keeping up with those relationships. Their schools are actually still calling me to find out how they're doing. Life goes on.
I'm also getting calls from supers who are using this time to reorganize and retool their teams. Now is a great time to look at your current talent makeup, look at the gaps in your team and think about skillsets you need to move forward. Who can you "upskill" and how?
Pat: Chapters have really stepped up but it still seems like other groups still don't engage even in a crisis. One more thing that pushes the stock up for superintendents is that they step up in situations like this.
Armen: Communications skills are going to have to be strong. If the club has a lot of debt, they're really going to get pressured to deliver quality conditions with a lot less money. That's going to go the rest of this year for sure and probably into next year. They have to be capable communicators to let members know why things are being done the way they are. After every recession, there's a mindset reset in the club business. I suspect we'll be seeing a lot of changes and the pendulum swinging hard towards economy.
Tyler: Salary cuts have been the #1 topic of discussion. How do you manage that conversation with your boss?
Armen: There's no doubt it's happening. The best way is to look at the management team as a whole and get everyone on the same page: ownership, membership down to management. Once those cuts are made, getting back to that level is hard. That needs to be addressed openly and honestly: how do we get back? There needs to be some kind of a benchmark structure based on revenues or budgets that benefits the super and the ownership. Try to get your goals aligned and create benchmarks. "Being a responsible business person who happens to be an agronomist is going to go a long way today and in the future. The fundamentals have not changed.
Armen's silver lining: This is a chance for younger supers and managers to rise to the challenge and learn a new skillset.
Tyler's silver lining: This is an opportunity for talented, passionate people to shine through.
Listen Now: Candid Conversations Podcast #2
Our second Candid Conversations webinar with Tyler Bloom, Dean Graves, Mark Bado and Jodie Cunningham focused on the human side of the crisis. The fundamental question was how do you lead and communicate with employees during this crisis, particularly when tough calls have to be made about furloughs and closures.
Please spend 78 minutes to listen to the podcast (apologies for some video issues on the front end) but here are a few key takeaways:
- Overall: It's a mess. With regulations down to the county or even city level there's no clear-cut advice we can offer anyone about coping agronomically and businesswise that doesn’t have an asterisk on it.
- Mark Bado: The overriding goal is to protect the staff and keep the golfers safe (if you have them). Clubs are being challenged to offer new services like curbside carryout food. Golf and fitness professionals are doing videos and other things to support members from a distance. 501(c)7s aren't eligible for CARES small business funding. There are ways to work with your insurance company to keep furloughed employees covered by health insurance. "Be patient, make sure you're managing up to your board and don't shrivel up. We're all gonna get through this." This is also a good time to reach back to those who mentored you for support and advice. Silver Lining: There's never been a better time to refinance club debt.
- Jodie Cunningham: "As the leader, you have to stay positive." Don't succumb to fear or get negative in tone. Be open about what you're doing to keep the workspace safe but don't be surprised that people will still be scared. Now more than ever, an understanding of each of your employees and how they're wired, what their strengths are (is critical). Who we are naturally comes out in full force when we're under stress." Preparing for the conversations about furloughs or other changes is crucial. The decisions on who to furlough or lay off needs to be based on business needs. Remember you're talking to a person. The follow-up conversation is probably more important than the first conversation. That's when you'll need to check in and answer specific questions or find out how they are. Silver Lining: Everyone is impacted and they probably know it's coming.
- Tyler Bloom: Superintendents...take a deep breath. It's going to be okay. Know your staff! It's okay to be vulnerable. Be proactive and look at what you can control and how it will impact the rebound from this crisis. We're going to eventually have a lot of opportunity to rehire or hire new people. Getting your staff to manage up to you is very important. Silver Lining: Superintendents may have an opportunity to build a new staff that's a better fit for the new normal.
- Dean Graves: Be consistent in caring for your folks. Scan your team's faces and you can tell who's worried or preoccupied and then ask them later what's troubling them. How do you keep your staff safe while they're at work? You need to analyze every aspect of shared spaces and then social distancing while they're in the field. Remember different cultures and backgrounds will react differently to the same circumstances. Silver Lining: Good relationships within your team can become great relationships through this crisis.
- Repeat theme from last week: Focus your money and time “down the middle” not just agronomically but people-wise. What are the core critical things we need to get done? Also manage expectations about what's not going to get done.
Final thoughts...
"This is the time when we really earn our money," said Bado. "This is the time that we really prove who we are and what we do. This is our time to be leaders. Do not let this opportunity slide by you. Step to the plate, be prepared and use the responsibility that we've accepted. If that doesn't get you going, I'm not sure what will."
"Humility is a strength," said Graves. You don't have to have all the answers. You're making yourself vulnerable and you can be intimate. It gives people something to relate you. You care, you communicate. They know you're the still the leader but you're strong in that you're listening to everyone around you and your mind's not made up. It's okay to say I don't know and to realize you don't have all the answers but I'm gonna try and we'll be successful through this."
Learn more:
LISTEN NOW:
Candid Conversations Podcast #2
LISTEN NOW: Turf and Coronavirus Podcast
On Wednesay 3/25 we pulled together six industry leaders to talk about various aspects of the impact of the crisis on golf and turf management. The podcast runs just over an hour and I think it’s worth your time. Key takeaways included:
Overall:
The short-term is a mess as states are all over the place with regulations. Closed operations with skeleton crews have become the new norm — particularly in the north — as people are just told to stay at home. Whether they’re open for golf or not, facilities are already in 2009 mode with budget cuts and deferred capital projects. Cash-flow is critical.
A few key thoughts from our participants:
Adam Moeller: Focus your resources on “maintenance up the middle” as headcount and money gets crunched.
Tyler Bloom: Use group texting and share job board updates to eliminate meetings and keep everyone on the same page.
Dr. John Kaminski: Research will be seriously impacted.
Jason Haines: Everyone should do worst-case budget scenarios.
Tom Valentine: Remember that we’re all in this together. A sense of empathy is paramount.
Pat Jones: Be 100% transparent with suppliers and reps when cash-flow is an issue.
Look for follow-up webcasts soon.
LISTEN NOW: Turf and Coronavirus Pocast
We will get through this.
The current state of the golf industry ranges from business as usual to completely closed for the foreseeable future.
Based on surveys I've seen from several places, my educated guess is that a third of all courses are closed for play, a third are golf-only with tight precautions and a third are largely business as usual but with Clorox wipes all over the place.
If I had to bet the farm, I'd bet it on some form of nationwide "shelter in place" order coming soon. But in the meantime supers are dealing with a million questions including "what are the actual frickin' rules in my state?" Even in places like NY, California and Illinois where governors made it clear non-essential businesses were to close, supers and owners have read that to mean basic maintenance was still okay. Most are working with reduced or skeleton crews to keep turf alive and mowed to maintain the fundamental value of the asset.
Let's be honest, anything other than staying at home right now creates some level of risk for you and the rest of us. Yet many of us think courses can continue to operate with appropriate precautions. This will, perhaps, be revealed as foolish at some point but smarter folks than I (including the State of Washington) have looked at it and agreed.
Ohio just closed pretty much everything on Sunday. That said I was still happy to see this letter from my Buckeye golf peeps to Ohio's Governor Dewine urging him to continue to allow operations. This is good language to steal in other states as you all go through some version of this process of deciding how pandemics and golf coexist.
Wherever you are, you need to be an advocate for golf right now. Not because of our economic impact (we're beyond that argument now) but because golf courses offer an invaluable safe haven for both our bodies and our minds. With a few fixes, golf itself is a textbook social distancing activity. That bodes well for at least one aspect of golf in a post-COVID world...demand.
So what's going to happen on the other side of the equation... the supply side? What's going to happen to golf courses?
Before we talk about that, let's start with the awful truth of this epidemic: it's very likely people we know are going to get infected and some of them are going to die. In a tight-knit community like ours it is going to suck hard. Be prepared for the fact that lives will be cut short by this stupid fucking virus.
Okay, on to the more mundane subject of the market. From a macro standpoint the global economy is shattered by uncertainty. Golf is awesome and everything but economically we are a flea on the tail of the dog. People are getting laid off by the thousands and small businesses are boarding up. Recession? For sure. Probably worse that 2009. Depression? Possibly according to smarter folks than me. It is, as I cannot stop saying, uncharted territory for all of us.
A percentage of the courses that are closing now will never reopen. How many? Hundreds for sure. We have 14,500-ish facilities at last count and I gotta think 10-15% were already on fumes after several consecutive shitty weather years. I am truly sorry if you work for one of them but many courses that have been paying everyone out of cash flow just won't survive this.
By the way, not all of those courses that fail will be mom-and-pops or small daily fees. There are plenty of clubs at risk too. Poor management, failure to have any reserves and inherent problems like location or competition will kill weak private clubs too. Also at risk are bank-owned operations and ones tied up with real-estate or hospitality ventures that go belly up because of this.
That said, the majority of courses will survive this but the landscape will have changed dramatically. Business in the next six months is going to be very tough between closures (which might be done regionally on a rolling basis for months), layoffs and a big spending downturn as disposable income shrinks for millions of Americans at every level.
Thousands of supers are already being challenged to manage some kind of closure both agronomically and business-wise with decreased or even skeleton staff levels. Twitter has proved invaluable for this kind of information and there's good stuff available via GCSAA, USGA and elsewhere but mostly it’s creative, hardworking turfheads getting it done.
I expect, when we look back on this in a few months, we will be blown away by how well a handful of dedicated folks can present a quality product. At least for a while. If the weather plays along.
Yet, while there is confusion and concern, there is little bitching and moaning. As always, superintendents have risen to the occasion. I never cease to be amazed at how good y'all are at solving problems.
The only advice I can give you is to be ready to change. Many of us — me included — are going to be working and living on the fly for the next six months. Those of us who adapt to the new normal best will come out of this thing just fine.
I know it's scary as hell and uncertainty stinks, but we'll get through it. Just remember these words:
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
the courage to change the things I can,
and the wisdom to know the difference.
Much love to all of y'all. Be safe.--
